Kehinde Omoru, the executive producer of the short film, Deeply Cut, has said that her gateman inspired her to make the flick, which creates awareness about Hepatitis B.
“Our gateman was ill. I insisted on him having a test on just about every ailment and he tested positive for Hepatitis B,” she recalled.
She explained that she personally took the man to the tropical diseases centre close to the bus terminus in Yaba, Lagos, where he was treated for a while.
“He is still with us and we are managing his condition effectively. So the immediate inspiration for Deeply Cut is our gateman,” Omoru stated.
She was alarmed upon discovering that Hepatitis B is endemic in Nigeria after attending one of the clinics at Yaba to discuss at length with the consulting doctor.
But she needed the expertise of the filmmaker, actress and former beauty queen, Grace Edwin-Okon, to bring the project to fruition.
“I asked Grace Edwin-Okon to tweak the plot and infuse the movie with softening and entertaining lines, so that it is at once informing, warning, corrective, as it is entertaining,” she said.
The beauty of Edwin-Okon’s ingenious toning and contribution to Deeply Cut is that the advocative nature of the movie has been made less scary and daunting.
Asked whether she entertains any fears that filmmaking would overshadow her journalism, her response was “no”.
“I have pretty much written a great portion of each of my movies so far,” declared Omoru, whose husband has been actively involved in raising funds for her movie project.
Since she has many more scripts to go, Omoru said she would be thrilled if anyone out there would be interested in providing funding.
Deeply Cut, which she said is so sophisticated and excellently delivered, is her gift to humanity.
“If ever I could recoup the funds that went into making Deeply Cut, it would immediately go back to produce more advocacy movies,” she said.
Omoru, who said she has so far spent N3 million on promoting the project, explained that this is not the first film she has produced, naming the others to include: Adolescence, Diabetes, Antioxidants, The Way We Are and Making A Case For Ogi.
All these advocacy films can be found on her YouTube channel, Kehinde Omoru YouTube Channel.
Would she say that studying in the United Kingdom has given her a better perspective on life? And the answer from someone who says she appreciates the Nigerian film industry better known as Nollywood a lot is in the affirmative.
“Apart from a UK education, my life has been positively impacted by the planning nature of the ordinary everyday British man. The nature of goal-setting, reviews, quality-control measures, supervisions, record-keeping, discipline, stock-taking…on just about everything makes the whole of UK and its surroundings truly Great Britain. And we can do it at home in Nigeria if we become a little less self-centred. Grace Edwin Okon and I have been practising these things since we met,” she stated.